NAZARETH, ISRAEL // It is not entirely surprising that Amos Gilad,
an Israeli general who once sued his own government for “irreversible mental
damage” caused by his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has publicly courted
controversy again.
On Monday, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister,
suspended Mr Gilad as his envoy to Egypt, responsible for negotiating a
ceasefire with Hamas, after Mr Gilad called the prime minister’s truce
conditions “insane”.
The move threatened to unleash a political storm in Israel. Ehud
Barak, the defence minister and a longtime ally of Mr Gilad, rushed to denounce
Mr Olmert’s decision. He insisted that Mr Gilad, a defence ministry official in
charge of diplomatic and security issues, would continue with his other duties.
Mr Gilad’s fingerprints are to be found on most of the hawkish
policies approved by the political leadership since the start of the intifada in
2000, including the emasculation of the Palestinian Authority, the
“disengagement” from Gaza, and the promotion of civil war between Hamas and
Fatah.
Israeli commentators have noted that Mr Gilad has sought over the
years to erode the distinction between military and political influence. One,
Akiva Eldar, writing in Haaretz newspaper, accused Mr Gilad yesterday of being
“a mephisto in and out of uniform” who has turned his department “into one of
the most important power centres in the country”.
Popularly known as the “National Explainer”, Mr Gilad opened the
rift with Mr Olmert last week when he gave an interview to Maariv, another daily
newspaper, over his role in negotiating a renewed ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.
Mr Gilad, who brokered the six-month truce that preceded Israel’s
recent three-week Gaza offensive, is said to have believed an agreement was at
hand in which Hamas would end both arms smuggling into and rocket fire out of
Gaza in return for the opening of border crossings.
Angered that Mr Olmert effectively stalled the talks at the last
minute by also linking the ceasefire to the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli
soldier captured in 2006, Mr Gilad told the paper: “I don’t understand what they
are trying to do. Insult the Egyptians? … This is insanity, simply insanity.”
Until recently, talks about Sgt Shalit’s release had focused on a
prisoner exchange in which Hamas is demanding freedom for hundreds of
Palestinians.
When Mr Gilad refused to apologise, Mr Olmert suspended him as
envoy and lodged a complaint with the Civil Service Commission. Mr Gilad is
being replaced in the talks by Yuval Diskin, the head of the secret police, the
Shin Bet, and by a senior Olmert aide, Shalom Turgeman.
Mr Olmert’s move, in the last days before he leaves office, has
set him on a collision course with defence officials, who appear keen to agree
to a long-term ceasefire with Hamas.
Mr Barak’s staff issued a stern rebuke of the prime minister,
warning that Israel would “suffer the consequences”. Mr Barak himself called the
decision “shameful” and described Mr Gilad as “a dedicated and outstanding civil
servant”.
Mr Barak’s close ties to Mr Gilad date to his premiership, when
Mr Gilad briefed him as head of military intelligence’s research department.
Contrary to the pragmatic, almost dovish, image he has now
acquired, Mr Gilad has traditionally been regarded as an ultra-hawk.
It was his briefings at the time of Camp David in 2000, in which
he claimed that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was determined to use the
second intifada to destroy Israel, that gave weight to Mr Barak’s slogan “There
is no partner for peace”.
Four years later, in June 2004, a series of military officials
revealed that Mr Gilad had doctored intelligence reports and presented a false
picture to the politicians.
In reality, according to the director of military intelligence,
Amos Malka, the evidence showed that Arafat wanted to reach a deal with Israel
and had been taken by surprise by the ferocity of the popular Palestinian
uprising.
In response, Mr Gilad defended his briefings, calling Arafat
“incredibly dangerous” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
At the same time, he won a disability allowance from the defence
ministry for developing diabetes following what he called “heavy emotional
pressure” during the 1982 Lebanon war, which had left him psychologically
scarred.
Mr Gilad is blamed by some Israeli analysts for fuelling Israel’s
hawkish policies throughout the second intifada.
Commenting in 2004, Roni Ben Efrat noted that Mr Gilad’s false
intelligence had provided the political justification “for isolating Arafat and
attempting to replace him with Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. It lies today at the
root of the plan to disengage unilaterally from Gaza.”
However, the false intelligence revelations, as well as claims of
mental impairment, did little to dent Mr Gilad’s subsequent influence. He went
on to become the army’s co-ordinator in the occupied territories and helped Mr
Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, engineer the reoccupation of the West Bank and
crush the Palestinian Authority.
He also promoted the view that Israel was on the front line in
the “war on terror”. In Feb 2003, a month before the US invasion of Iraq, he
stated that Mr Arafat and Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, “believe in the same
path, the path of terror meant to break Israel”.
When he took over diplomatic and security issues at the defence
ministry in May 2003, Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst, warned that the
appointment marked “another step in the process of militarisation [of] Israeli
society”. He added: “Civilians – and civil worldviews – have been totally
excluded from any involvement or influence in the diplomatic process.”
Since Mr Olmert’s effective resignation in September over
corruption allegations, and as Israel still waits for a new prime minister to
emerge, government officials have complained that, despite being unelected, Mr
Gilad is as good as “running the country”.
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